Being a ‘Super Star’

What does it take for a modern player to become a Ronaldo-esque Super star? It take more than just being good at football that’s for sure, and sometimes, if you fit into enough of the other categories you don’t even have to be particularly good at the game!

1) Money:You have to live a flash lifestyle to make it to super star status, you can’t trundle around in a Prius and expect anyone to remember you. The biggest stars have the best cars and Ronaldo tops the list of the most expensive footballers cars with his Ferrari costing well north of £2 million, even the players on the list who are perhaps less well known for their footballing talent these days are still often in the spotlight with cult heroes like Mario Balotelli and El-Hadji Diouf owning some seriously pricey vehicles. Just putting ‘El-Hadji Diouf car’ into Google brings up a collection of bling Ali G would be proud of.

2) Controversy:

Every star needs to spark at least one media frenzy during their career. Lionel Messi, arguably the greatest player of all time and one who has kept his nose clean throughout most of his career had his major controversy last year with allegations of tax evasion against him and his father. Many of footballs great controversies in the past have been linked to the players we consider stars and with good reason, the phrase ‘There is no such thing as bad publicity’ is just as relevant in football as it is anywhere else. An interesting news story can elevate a mediocre players fame to that of a genuine football star, for example Mario Balotelli, who is proving to everyone how painfully average he is this season is as much in the public eye as players like Lampard, Gerrard, Pirlo and many other genuinely talented footballers are. I am not saying it is right to throw darts at youth team players by any stretch of the imagination; however I do not think he would be where he is in his career as a player, and as personality now without these incidents and the attention that comes with it.

3) The Big Transfer

In the modern era of football many people enjoy the thrill of deadline day more than match day itself, and nothing gets the fans more excited than a long, drawn out transfer saga. For a player, being involved in one of these sagas is a shortcut up a few steps of the ladder to becoming a star, one club players who have never had big transfer rumours spread about them will never have the same allure to the media as a £40 million plus player, or at least one who is rumoured to be! Steven Gerrard and his seemingly imminent transfer to Chelsea in 2005 is a perfect example of how this kind of media attention can truly elevate someone to a world star, and not just a club hero.

4) FIFA

You have to have held down a great rating on FIFA for at least 1 year to really be a star. Being an 85+ rated player on FIFA imprints your name and badly re-created face onto the vulnerable minds of the nations children and seals your status as a childhood hero for the next generation of Super Sunday fanatics. If you can become a legend on the Xbox, you’re half way there in real life.

5) Break Records

To rise even higher than the economy class super star, into the VIP lounge of elite players you need to be the very best, and the best way to prove this is by breaking records. Ronaldo and Messi have been re-writing the record books as the most exiting football talents seen for decades and this is why people talk about them being the best of all time. To be breaking so many long standing records in this hyper-competitive, money fuelled era of football is incredible and they deserve all the credit they get. When we eventually get another next player who is challenging these records only then will we have another ‘Elite Player’.

As you can see there are a number of different ways you can go about becoming the next footballing super star, but the real challenge is in finding the next generation of elite footballers.